MSI Z77A-GD65 LGA1155 Motherboard Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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MSI Z77A-GD65 LGA1155 Motherboard Review - MSI has been on a roll with its motherboards as of late. It’s because of this that our expectations for MSI’s foray into the world of Z77 chipset based motherboards are so high. MSI’s "GD65" series of motherboards have been an especially solid value and the Z77A-GD65 looks to be no different.
 
MSI makes good boards. I found them well designed and feature rich. My only complaints are concerning customer service. For CS they are truly shitty.
 
doho7744 said:
MSI makes good boards. I found them well designed and feature rich. My only complaints are concerning customer service. For CS they are truly shitty.
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I keep trying to contact them and always just get the messaging service. I'm trying to ask if any of their boards has an advanced rma option similar to Asus Premium Service. Does anyone know if they do?
 
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RyanH said:
I keep trying to contact them and always just get the messaging service. I'm trying to ask if any of there boards has an advanced rma option similar to Asus Premium Service. Does anyone know if they do?
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Well if you can't get in touch with them to answer a simple question what would you do if you needed an RMA? Would be a clear sign to stay away. I have two MSI video cards and like every other product I own I hope I never have to contact the manufacture.
 
Just bought and setup this MB this weekend using a 3770K. The only issue I had was that the my cpu cooler needed to have a flange trimmed to not interfere with the first DIMM slot.

Otherwise flawless install, updates.
 
it is a good board. No issues so far. Had no problems setting up my raid. Overclocks the 3700k like a champ.

Btw, if [H] does get more Z77 boards for review, i am looking forward to the SATA speed comparisons between the boards. According to Anandtech, this board is slower that the comparable motherboards such as Asus Z77 pro, Gigabyte ud3h/ud5h etc when it comes to SATA II and III speeds.
 
doho7744 said:
MSI makes good boards. I found them well designed and feature rich. My only complaints are concerning customer service. For CS they are truly shitty.
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ASUS was always worse for me. It was a large factor in why I stopped using ASUS boards (the other part of it is that their quality really took a dive). Been having fantastic luck with MSI boards... both myself, personally, and everyone I recommend them to.
 
I'm stuck deciding between this or the gigabyte z77-ud5h :-/

I had an msi board previously, x58 pro, which was.. all right i suppose, but nothing great. I'm just kinda torn.
 
A few notes concerning some things said on the first page.
1) Was their "gaming port" sensitivity enhancement supposed to be automatic overpolling of the USB ports?
2) Did they optimize the PS/2 port signal traces so they have a more direct path to the CPU? Usually they meander around the power phases and are a lower priority during board layout.
3) More gold in the pins actually does increase the insertion count life, which would potentially help for a LAN rig. Thinner gold layers can wear out, as the downside of self-cleaning contacts is they're soft. Gold is still better than tin in every way, >10x the insertion count life, better self-cleaning (during insertion), no corrosion, and no whiskering phenomenon being the most important for PC use. The insertion limit of PS/2 is vastly inferior to USB (which was designed to sustain more insertions), so anything they can do to help there is very welcome, in my opinion. While the average gamer won't encounter such problems with USB devices, it's nice to see that they're thinking of us.

And I love my Monoprice stuff. Monster is a cash-grab, but there is something to the mechanical characteristics of electrical connections. As an electrical engineer grad in the automotive field, I deal with it daily.
 
Thanks for the article. I think I remember when SB was first eval'd you mentioned that standard cpu stress programs didn't always expose instability and you ended up playing games. Is this still the case, do you have an updated standard test/test set? I ask because I've just got the g-43 version of this board.
 
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I wasn't pleased with all the damn stickers they put on this board. Removing all the stickers ended up like this...

r7n9j4.jpg


I know its something stupid to gripe about but having to clean all this up was rather annoying. MSI, ditch the stickers and put this sort of thing in your manual.... that's why they call it a manual.
 
Overall It is very nice mobo Finally I was able to put it together last night 3570k and 16gb sammy green.
I haven’t tried to o/c yet…

The only problem I had last night was getting audio output from rear speaker output (green). It does recognizes when I plug something in, however there is no sound, noise, static or anything coming from it. I quickly tested inputs on the front panel, and my headphones worked fine.

I’m using windows 7 x64 home with SP1

My mobo uses 10.3 BIOS and latest ALC898 drivers from MSI site.

Can the owners with working rear audio output tell me what BIOS and driver they are using?

It seems like a software issue, I went to bed at 3am last night… LOL… If you guys have any ideas please let me know.

I will try to re-install driver, update BIOS and possibly use Asus ALC898 driver (I’m not sure if that would work)….

TIA ;)
 
Wow!!! Brought the coveted [H]OCP Gold award! :cool:


I am happy with my Z68 GD65 G3 with 3570k. :)
 
Elsie said:
Thanks for the article. I think I remember when SB was first eval'd you mentioned that standard cpu stress programs didn't always expose instability and you ended up playing games. Is this still the case, do you have an updated standard test/test set? I ask because I've just got the g-43 version of this board.
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No that is not what we said. Our standard Torture Testing did in fact show instability but the system was still stable as a gaming system at the clocks defined.
 
dR.Jester said:
I wasn't pleased with all the damn stickers they put on this board. Removing all the stickers ended up like this...

snip

I know its something stupid to gripe about but having to clean all this up was rather annoying. MSI, ditch the stickers and put this sort of thing in your manual.... that's why they call it a manual.
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It is very annoying! I probably spent about 25minutes trying to remove the shit that is left over after removing the crappy stickers on the motherboard. I don't know why they do it. It is not like i am using it as a display model
 
>At 4.3GHz I had to finally set my CPU PLL voltage to 1.9v manually.

Intel doesn't recommend over 1.89 on air/liquid, and 1.8 for most applications! :eek:

Edit: Never mind. I see you are using a Sandy Bridge. From the overclock section, that wasn't clear because you were mixing SB/IB throughout the article.

So it's a nut loose behind the keyboard problem. (me) :)
 
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Have you guys tested some the updated Virtu Virtual vsync stuff on these boards?

Nice review btw, good to see that MSI is still putting out solid boards, my P67A-GD55 has held up nicely (first non ASUS mobo I've bought in the last few years).
 
Had to do an impromptu system build when my wife's old PC died. Ended up giving her my 920 and just ordered one of these and a 3770K.
I usually go with Asus boards, but this one has everything I want and it's a hell of a lot cheaper.
 
I am liking this board...also looking into the MSI Z77 GD80 are there any real differences between these two boards besides Thunderbolt? And does anyone know when the GD80 is supposed to be released?
 
EternityZX9 said:
I am liking this board...also looking into the MSI Z77 GD80 are there any real differences between these two boards besides Thunderbolt? And does anyone know when the GD80 is supposed to be released?
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The PCIe slots are more flexible. The X16 slots run at PCIe 3.0 8/8/4. In other words all three of them are wired directly to the CPU. You can do tripleGPU without any loss in performance.

It also has a more robust VRM section, 14 phases instead of 12. But I doubt it will make any difference to your overclocking. SNB and IVB are very power-efficient, so 14 phases is overkill.
 
XacTactX said:
The PCIe slots are more flexible. The X16 slots run at PCIe 3.0 8/8/4. In other words all three of them are wired directly to the CPU. You can do tripleGPU without any loss in performance.

It also has a more robust VRM section, 14 phases instead of 12. But I doubt it will make any difference to your overclocking. SNB and IVB are very power-efficient, so 14 phases is overkill.
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With power phases it's about quality, not quantity. I'm not saying it doesn't have it. But there this alone is not an idicator of quality.
 
got this board for approx. 3weeks now combined with an ivy 3570k....smooth, reliable .Just like with any other brand ...dont install their gloomy homebrew software and drivers , turns most of the stuff to apeshit(ie. THX software is utter crap) Monitoring tools are somewhat accurate and bios update is easy.
you get for for the money what asus provides at 50$+, its not made of magical runestones nor is it assembled by little nerdy elves.........its just a very solid board for its pricerange.
 
I was planning to wait for the Asus M5F or the EVGA Z77, but the 3770K's finally came back in stock at Newegg and I needed something now. I've bought nothing but Asus for my main rig for years and years, but just wasn't thrilled with what I saw on the V-series Z77's and wasn't going mATX with the M5G. Decided to go with this based on the reviews, I hope I don't regret it!
 
Mine should be arriving today, or so I hope. I probably won't do any OC'ing for a little while, but I'll feel obligated to give it a try once everything is nice and stable.
 
I just installed my 3570k on this board.
Not sure what the deal with the stickers for you guys but mine came off pretty easy. Just had to be a bit careful with it.

I have an Asus HD 6870 installed and I'm not sure how to setup this Lucid Virtu feature. I tried google but couldn't find much information on how to set it up properly. What I'm trying to do is use the Intel IGP for most of my use and have it switch to my HD 6870 when I'm gaming. I've updated the Intel HD4000 drivers on the Intel website already but not sure how this thing works.
 
You have to switch the IGP settings to d-mode in bois i believe. Once you install the Virtu MVP software, you can check if you want both discreet + igpu or just discrete. Just know that a lot of games do not support virtu MVP. Battlefield 3 wouldn't even start for me when igpu+discreet is on.
 
No issues with the stickers on mine either. The RAM slots are a little tight next to my Coolermaster Hyper 212, so I had to use slots 2 and 4.
Not being that familiar with the new chipset, it seems like the board auto enables and disables video depending on whether you have something plugged into any PCIe video cards you might have. A flat out "disable" in the BIOS might've been nice.

Temps for my 3770K are definitely odd. I idle in the 20's at stock speeds, but at full load it skyrockets up to the mid 50's. I'm going to have to play around with my thermal paste a bit and see if something is up.

There are a boatload of drivers that you have to install from the CD/MSI site for this guy. Literally 6-7 different ones for the NIC, USB3, and various other Intel oddball drivers.
 
On my test sample the sticker fell apart and ended up leaving crap all over the slot.
 
I wonder if they're using different stickers now? Mine were laminated-style nylon'ish stickers and I don't think I could've ripped them even if I wanted to.
 
Domingo said:
I wonder if they're using different stickers now? Mine were laminated-style nylon'ish stickers and I don't think I could've ripped them even if I wanted to.
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Yeah, I think they've changed. That's not how mine was.
 
Domingo said:
Temps for my 3770K are definitely odd. I idle in the 20's at stock speeds, but at full load it skyrockets up to the mid 50's. I'm going to have to play around with my thermal paste a bit and see if something is up.

There are a boatload of drivers that you have to install from the CD/MSI site for this guy. Literally 6-7 different ones for the NIC, USB3, and various other Intel oddball drivers.
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with my 3570k cpu and room temp of 24C, at stock speeds I'm getting 29C in idle and 55C during full load (ITB). I'm using Silver Arrow SB-E hsf on a very lose/slow rpm setting. I'm not expert but your temps seem normal to me.

Domingo said:
I wonder if they're using different stickers now? Mine were laminated-style nylon'ish stickers and I don't think I could've ripped them even if I wanted to.
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+1, no issue for me.
 
Temps are so unusual for this chipset...at least compared with my old 920.
I OC'd everything to 4.2ghz...and my temps only went up to around 67 (from 57-58 or so).
That big of a change would've been pretty dramatic for my older 920.
I guess I'm just going to have to get used to Ivy Bridge.

Here's a question - anyone know what "Advanced Turbo" does? I know normal Intel Turbo, but there's a 2nd option in there with the newer BIOS. By default it's disabled.
 
With Ivy Bridge, your temps should be pretty good between stock and 4.4GHz. Then all of the sudden they shoot into the stratosphere after giving them a modest voltage increase, and s slight bump in clocks. I've seen huge jumps in temperatures just going to 4.5GHz or 4.6GHz from 4.4GHz. Most of the time on water I'm seeing load temperatures in the 73c-83c zone at 4.7GHz or so. Granted ambient temperatures could be better in my office, so that factors in I'm sure, but not everyone wants to keep their house as cold as I would so these results probably aren't that far off the mark compared to what others will see. I know Kyle is seeing similar results based on his notes and what I've physically seen on his testing setup. His ambient temperatures are similar to mine, if not slightly better at times and I'd rate his cooling hardware as being at least as good. Same thing. The setup I'm using is good enough to push Sandy Bridge up to 5.0GHz and beyond.
 
Domingo said:
There are a boatload of drivers that you have to install from the CD/MSI site for this guy. Literally 6-7 different ones for the NIC, USB3, and various other Intel oddball drivers.
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News flash. A product released after an OS needs drivers.
 
techrat said:
News flash. A product released after an OS needs drivers.
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And even then, many things will benefit from updated drivers that aren't included in the Windows driver database when the OS ships. Chipsets, video card drivers etc. are great examples of this.
 
No doubt, but Windows update doesn't find any of them, nor does the "find driver online" function.
I must've had 15 "unknown device" listings after putting the board in. I haven't encountered that since the early days of Windows XP and a P4, and I've gone through 4 systems since then.
 
Domingo said:
No doubt, but Windows update doesn't find any of them, nor does the "find driver online" function.
I must've had 15 "unknown device" listings after putting the board in. I haven't encountered that since the early days of Windows XP and a P4, and I've gone through 4 systems since then.
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Those features are largely useless because they are maintained by Microsoft. They do not typically get updated drivers to add to their driver database after the OS launches. You need to go the manufacturers websites for specific hardware and download drivers for it. It has ALWAYS been this way. Even going back to Windows 95. And in the case of an MSI board, drivers that get you up and running are in a fairly automated installer located on the driver disc.

I don't understand the complaint.
 
Dan_D said:
With Ivy Bridge, your temps should be pretty good between stock and 4.4GHz. Then all of the sudden they shoot into the stratosphere after giving them a modest voltage increase, and s slight bump in clocks. I've seen huge jumps in temperatures just going to 4.5GHz or 4.6GHz from 4.4GHz. Most of the time on water I'm seeing load temperatures in the 73c-83c zone at 4.7GHz or so. Granted ambient temperatures could be better in my office, so that factors in I'm sure, but not everyone wants to keep their house as cold as I would so these results probably aren't that far off the mark compared to what others will see. I know Kyle is seeing similar results based on his notes and what I've physically seen on his testing setup. His ambient temperatures are similar to mine, if not slightly better at times and I'd rate his cooling hardware as being at least as good. Same thing. The setup I'm using is good enough to push Sandy Bridge up to 5.0GHz and beyond.
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Dan this is so true..... My goal was to get best clock on Silver Arrow SB-E Air, as long as vcore I set is under 1.20V and temps are around 80C. I got 4.4ghz on 1.14V with temp low 70C... to reach 4.5ghz I had to use 1.18V (If I'm not mistaken)... and temp were close to 80C. I had horrible time with 3DMark11 Basic crashing my windows at start, so while trying to fix the problem, I messed up my BIOS settings and I couldn't get 4.5ghz again.... even at 1.20V. I might reset my BIOS and start from scratch. Also I was messing around too much with my Sammy ECO ram... Since the diffrence between 1600 and 2133 are small... I might just leave it at 1600. BTW... 3DMark2011 would crash on my new IB rig at stock CPU/GPU/RAM speeds... go figure... maybe latest nvidia drivers.... Heaven / BF3 / Intel burn-in app / youtube worked all fine...
 
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